How To Bake The Best Carrot Cake You'll Ever Eat • Tasty

Carrot cake , a delicious way to get some vegetables in .

It almost feels kind of healthy , almost .

It certainly doesn't taste healthy when it's done .

Right ?

Sometimes carrot cake can be really hit or miss .

But let me tell you when it's done .

Well , that cake can be beautifully baked , perfectly moist and melts in your mouth filled with the perfect mix of spices , slather it with some velvety decadent cream cheese frosting and it's to die for .

We're gonna show you how to make a carrot cake that is moist and flavorful .

We're going to start off with our star ingredients , carrots .

You can control the size and the moisture content of the carrots when you hand grate them .

So when you're shopping for them , you want to look for the biggest carrots you can find .

So they're easier to grate .

We'll be using the large side of the hand grater for added texture in our cake to really highlight the carrots store bought , shredded carrots are often just too thick and they've been dried out to preserve them .

So they lack that flavor and moisture content we're looking for .

Ok .

The first thing we need to do is create a parchment round to line our cake pans , take a small rectangle of parchment , fold it in half , we'll fold it in half again .

Then we'll bring up the closed tip to create a narrow triangle place that closed tip in the center of the cake pan .

And then we're going to mark the edge of the cake pan and cut off the excess parchment .

This way , when you unfold that triangle , it should be a perfect circle that fits in the bottom of your cake pan .

Now that you have your perfect circle , the best way to secure it to the pan is to use a little bit of non stick , spray , place the parchment circle inside and press down and then spray the top of the and the edges of the cake pan to really make sure your cake does not stick .

Now we're going to preheat our oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit , let's make this cake in a large bowl .

We're going to combine the grated carrots in buttermilk and we're going to stir them until the carrots are completely coated .

The fat and acid from the buttermilk helps create a tighter and more tender cake crumb .

If you use whole milk , it lacks acidity and creates a coarser crumb .

If you use sour cream , it has extra fat and creates a much finer crumb and creates a little bit more of a dense texture when measuring your flour .

Keep in mind that there's a difference when you're scooping versus spooning to level your flour .

If you just stick your measuring cup into your bag of flour , the scooping can pack it too tightly and you'll end up using just more flour than the recipe in tens .

What we like to do is spoon our flour into the measuring cup and level it to ensure that we're using a true cupful .

We're also gonna use whole wheat flour for a toasty and gram flavor .

And it'll also help absorb some of that carrots moisture .

Let's sift together the all purpose flour and whole wheat flowers with the baking powder .

Cinnamon ground ginger salt , baking soda , ground cloves , ground all spice and some freshly grated nutmeg .

The carrot cake spice is generally closer to that of a ginger bread .

It's definitely more ginger and cinnamon forward in the bowl of our stand mixer .

We're gonna combine the brown sugar , granulated sugar , eggs and vanilla extract .

Then we'll fit it with the whisk attachment and beat it on medium speed until the mixture begins to drop from the whisk in disappearing ribbons .

It'll take about three minutes .

Keep in mind you of using room temperature ingredients .

Keeping all of your ingredients at room temp will help to create a better mation of the batter .

Also , eggs that are at room temp will trap air more easily which turns into steam in the oven and creates a light and fluffy cake texture .

It's important to air at the eggs fully to create that volume .

With the mixer running on medium speed , we're going to slowly drizzle in vegetable oil .

Make sure to use a neutral oil like vegetable oil or grape seed .

You can even use sunflower .

We just don't want to overpower our cake with flavor .

So something like an olive oil is not going to be great here .

Now , the oil does not want to mix with the water content from the eggs .

So you need to incorporate the fat real slow while whisking real fast to properly emulsify and create a thick texture .

Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl halfway through just to make sure everything is getting incorporated .

Continue mixing until the mixture is fully emulsified .

It's probably gonna take about two minutes .

Now , we're going to alternate adding our dry mixture and our carrot mixture .

So we're going to start by adding a third of the flour mixture and we'll mix it on low speed just until the flour starts to get incorporated .

Then we'll add a half of the carrot mixture and continue mixing on low speed until that feels incorporated .

We continue alternating adding the flour and the carrot mixtures .

If you add all the dry ingredients at once , it can make the batter too thick and difficult to mix into which can cause over mixing in the end .

But if we add all the wet ingredients at once , it could cause the emulsification process to separate and it's difficult to bring the mixture back together once it's broken .

Now , we're gonna remove the bowl from the mixer and use a flat rubber spatula to bring the batter together .

If we keep the whisk on and we over mix the cake batter , it'll just make the cake chewy and dense and we want to finish gently mixing the batter together .

So we're gonna use the rubber spatula to make sure everything is incorporated .

We made our carrot cake to highlight the carrots , but people often add fruit and nuts .

If we were using all these mix ins , we'd coat them in flour so they don't sink to the bottom of the pan when we're baking .

Now let's evenly divide the batter between the prepared cake pans .

It's not the sexiest cake batter pour , but wait till it's baked .

It'll be totally worth it .

We're going to bake them until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean .

It'll take about 25 minutes .

Let the cakes cool for like 10 minutes and then remove them from the pans and let them cool completely .

Now , we're on to carrot cakes , Bestie that cream cheese frosting .

We're gonna take ours to the next level and add a real vanilla bean .

We'll cream it together with butter , cream cheese vanilla extract and the salt .

Then we'll add the powdered sugar and continue mixing until it's silky and smooth .

Ok .

Now we're ready to build this thing .

So we're gonna place a dab of frosting on the cake board and then we'll place a cooled cake layer on top to secure it to the board .

We're gonna use a cookie scoop to help us measure the frosting and also it's just so much cleaner .

Then we'll spread it evenly across the top and we'll continue with the other two layers .

Then we'll top this whole thing with whatever remaining frosting we have left over .

We're not gonna be shy about this .

Now , that batter shot was not cute , but this is so sexy .

Isn't that just so satisfying ?

There you have it .

A carrot cake recipe that is moist , flavorful and stunning .

So when you want to go for that second slice , remember there's carrots in there and carrots are healthy .